Hush
by snuggalong
Summary: The first day he wakes up and realizes that he is alone, it is silent. "Good-bye," he whispers to the silence, and listens to it laugh at him. -implied USUK, oneshot, angst-


**Hush**

* * *

_Hush now—can you hear?  
__The silence whispering in your ear_

The first day he wakes up and realizes he is alone, it is silent. Not true silence, but the kind of silence where everything is muted and dulled because it just doesn't _mean_ anything anymore.

The kind of silence where everyone and everything is afraid to make a sound for fear of you.

The kind of silence that makes him die inside, because only yesterday, it seems, silence was only found in the darkness of the night.

The kind of silence that breaks him all the more because he remembers a time when there was laughter to fill it.

_As you watch them walk away  
__Though you have so much left to say_

Was it truly only yesterday he stood and watched the only person he had ever truly cared for walk out of his life without a backward glance?

It feels like forever and yet, only a moment has passed at the same time.

His uniform sits crumpled and abandoned in the corner, still soaked through with mud and rain and blood.

His tears too, he knows, are there. Desperate, broken tears, tears that he cried because he knew it was hopeless but oh how he wished there was something he could have said, something that would make it all okay.

So many words he wanted to say, but all he could say was, _"I won't allow it!"_

But it happened all the same.

_It presses all around  
__Till you feel like you might drown  
__And you scream simply to make a sound—_

He wakes up screaming and chokes on the silence that invades his senses as it peters out. The scream echoes in the silence, reminding him of just how alone he is, just how much he's lost.

He listens, but the scream fades into the silence and still nothing happens.

No running footsteps. No slamming doors. No concerned voices...or one concerned voice, in particular.

Only him, this huge, empty house, and the silence.

He curls into himself and even though he won't admit ever admit it, the tears slide down his cheeks, hot and hard and fast, thick with shame and regrets and memories and pain.

He screams again because it chases away the silence, if only for a moment.

_Where did it all go wrong? Was it a charade, all along?  
__Were you caught in the web of their pretty lies?  
__Did you ever doubt, ever wonder why?_

Was it something he did? Something he said? He'd do anything, say anything, give up anything if only he could know so that he could make it right.

Could he even make it right?

He stares out the window, at the rain that slides down it and blurs the world outside, and he wonders.

Wonders if any of it was ever actually real. If he ever cared like he seemed to.

If he had...would he have left?

If he hadn't been so blind, could he have stopped it?

The guilt and shame at his thoughts burns like a knife, how could he think that why did he think that how could he think that _it wasn't true_.

But he can't stop the thoughts from invading his dreams.

Midnight sees him staring out the rain washed window, face aglow from the light of the streetlamp, staring with empty, dull green eyes towards the dim, distant, rain-blurred horizon and wondering.

Wondering where he is. What he's doing.

If he's happy with the freedom he fought so hard for—or if it's bitter to him, having come at much too high a cost.

If he ever stops for a moment and thinks about what he left behind.

_Maybe you did, but you didn't want this dream to die—_

He should have seen the signs, he supposed. Should have seen it coming, as they say.

But why would he have ever thought in the first place that he would leave him?

He should have known. All good things—even ones that will never die—come to an end, in some way or another.

He just wishes he had seen. Had known.

Because maybe then it wouldn't hurt so much.

Maybe this silence wouldn't break him so.

_And so you'll let the silence come  
__Even as your heart falls numb_

The first time he sees him, afterward, smiling and laughing and so carefree, it's all he can do not to cry. Not to shout, not to scream, not to take him by the shoulders and ask him _why?_

How could he be so happy, when he himself feels like his world has been torn apart?

Did he feel no regret whatsoever?

But he doesn't say anything—only lowers his head and brushes by, and savors the touch of their shoulders as he does because he knows it is the only solace he'll get.

When their eyes meet across the room, for a moment he thinks he sees something...pain, regret? But then his attention is drawn away and when he looks back the moment is gone, and he convinces himself that it was just his imagination.

_Because there's nothing left to say_

When they ask him for his opinion, he says nothing, and they leave him be. He knows he doesn't imagine the pity in their eyes, and he definitely doesn't imagine the pause each time they speak to him, that small silence as they wonder if speaking to him is worth it, worth his reaction.

Either way, he doesn't answer. Merely sits in his silence and watches the world move on around him, despite, to him, having ended.

There is nothing he can do that hasn't already been done. Nothing he can say that hasn't already been said.

Save the one thing that was never said between them, because neither could bear to say it.

It is the only victory he can have in this war, this small war of memories and broken hearts.

_When all you can say_

He calls after him, later, wanting to say it while the courage is still in his heart and the memory is still there.

Wants to say it while he knows it will still mean something.

But when he turns, and their eyes meet again, something catches inside him. He cannot breathe, cannot speak, cannot bring himself to say this one final thing that he knows needs to be said.

He can't do it.

His head falls, and he hears the sigh, hears the footsteps, feels the brush of a shoulder against his once more.

Silence falls around him as those footsteps fade away, and it is only then that that invisible hand frees his throat and he finds that he can breathe again—

—can speak these words, though it's far too late.

"_Good-bye,_" he whispers to the silence, and listens to it laugh at him.

—_is goodbye_

My very first Hetalia fanfiction...and I think it might have turned out pretty well, actually. For those of you wondering, this is England and America, right after the Revolutionary War, from England's point of view. My first Hetalia fanfiction and it's not even about Russia...I just got done watching America's Storage Room Cleaning, and this got into my head and wouldn't leave. It is not meant to be a romantic story at all, however, you can take it that way if you wish. Hence the 'implied' in the summary.

This is 1000 words that should be going towards my novel, 'This World of Ours,' but I felt like I owed FF something. I'm about 33,000 words into NaNoWriMo, for those of you who care.

Anyways, I hope you all liked this little story, and I should be completely back online with FF in the next few weeks. The poem is indeed mine, so please ask permission if you happen to want to use it.

I do not own Hetalia: Axis Powers, despite how much I wish Russia, Prussia, and Canada were mine.


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